Teach for America

Teach for America is a national corps of recent college graduates from all academic majors who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools. Its mission is “to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation’s most promising future leaders in the effort.”

 

Teach for America places corps members in regions most profoundly impacted by the gap in educational outcomes. More than 80 percent of the students that corps members reach qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and 95 percent of the students are African-American or Latino. All of the districts in which TFA members serve are classified as “high-need” local education agencies by the federal government.

 

Urban sites include Atlanta, Baltimore, the Bay Area, Charlotte, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. Rural sites include Eastern North Carolina, the Mississippi Delta (in Arkansas and Mississippi), New Mexico, The Rio Grande Valley in Texas, South Dakota, New Orleans, the Las Vegas Valley, and Miami-Dade.

 

Corps members are paid directly by the school districts for which they work and generally receive the same salaries and health benefits as their district peers. Corps members earn between $28,000 and $44,000 per year at urban sites and between $25,000 and $33,000 at rural sites.

 

Teach For America is a currently a member of AmeriCorps. As such, corps members are eligible to receive loan forbearance and interest payment on qualified student loans during their two years of service. They are also eligible to receive an education award of $4,725 at the end of each year-of-service (a total of $9,450 over the two years), which may be used toward future educational expenses or to repay qualified student loans.

 

Teach For America is a public-private partnership, founded in 1989, and headquartered in New York City. To find out more information, visit the official Teach for America website.

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